The offices of Major League Baseball handed down suspensions to the players and coaches involved in yesterday’s benches-clearing incident at Guaranteed Rate Field, as first reported by ESPN‘s Jeff Passan. Kansas City Royals pitcher Brad Keller was suspended five games for intentionally hitting Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson with a 92 mph fastball after his emphatic celebration of a fourth-inning home run.
Anderson, meanwhile, was suspended one game for what the league has described as “[mis]conduct after the benches cleared.” Despite patting opposing catcher Martin Maldonado on the chest and walking towards first base immediately after the hit, he reportedly directed racial slurs at Keller “within an earshot” of league umpires, likely prompting the initial ejection from crew chief Joe West.
Sox manager Rick Renteria was also handed a one-game suspension and undisclosed fine after shoving bench coach Dale Sveum (who was also ejected) just minutes after the hit-by-pitch. Renteria could be seen yelling at the Kansas City bench as they approached and barked at Anderson from the first-base line. At that point, players had to be restrained a second time.
Anderson, 25, already owns a 0.9 bWAR and 1.2 fWAR just 16 games into the regular season, thanks in large part to a .422/.439/.656 line, four homers, 12 RBI, and seven steals. He has been involved in a couple of dust-ups since his debut in 2016, though has also developed into a fan favorite on the South Side with his upbeat social media presence and philanthropic initiatives.
“It’s all confusing,” Anderson told reporters yesterday regarding his ejection. “I’m the one that ended up in the locker room, and I was the one that got hit by a pitch.”
The incident has sparked league-wide debate about the ethics and consequences of bat-flipping, but has above all else further mystified the oft-coined, heavily marketed approach of “letting the kids play,” with Anderson’s suspension in particular receiving backlash. This is the second instance of hit-by-pitch ejections in two weeks, the first dating back to the Sunday before last – when Pittsburgh Pirates starter Chris Archer was handed a five-game ban for beaning Cincinnati Reds utility-man Derek Dietrich, who despite also backing away from a fight, was not given any such punishment.
